SILVA. tions of a novice, between the vi- vation of the mind, which leads to gorous though frequently rude efforts of real genius, and that in- . to the worse. The invisible sceptre an habitual preference of the better sipid smoothness, tawdry finery, which sways and fixes the morals and mechanical dexterity, which of a people, is held by the hand of too often assumes its character. To attain this knowledge, is the acquisition of taste. "What then is taste, but the internal Active and strong, and feelingly alive sense Of decent and sublime, with quick dis- In species ?" Or, to use the language of an elegant prose writer,* "Taste is the power of selecting the best ;" hence says he, "its effect is necessarily extended to conduct and charac ter." taste." This faculty is in every person's power to possess, in a greater or less degree, according to the strength & cultivation of his understanding. absolutely require all their time Those, whose circumstances do not to provide the necessaries of life, leisure for this purpose; and they have sufficient,many have abundant who neglect it, not only lose a great and enviable source of rational pleaformed a duty to the author of their sure, but assuredly leave unperbove the brutes, not to "rust unbeing, who gave them faculties aused," but to be improved by all opportunities to the utmost of their Power, that they may be the better enabled to perform the various And he adds this beautiful, and strikingly just remark, "In a polished nation, half the portion of existing vice may be ascribed to bad taste, to the want of that culti-parts of their character, as it respects their maker, their fellowcreatures, and themselves. Aug. 24th. Hoare's inquiry into the cultivation, and present state of the arts in England. E. E. SILVA. Nec cibi canarum quivis temerè arroget artem, VOLTAIRE. Ir is very difficult to ascertain the truth of particular events in history, or in the lives of celebrated men. The death of Voltaire is an instance of this; names are given, and circumstances mentioned to prove his having demanded a confessor; and, after having expressed his remorse, that he recanted the opinions contained in his works. I was present one evening, in a small circle, at the house of Mr. in Paris. Among the company were the marchioness de Villette, the adopted HOR. EPIST. No. 18. daughter of Voltaire, whom he used to "belle et bonne," and Mr. Robert, the landscape painter, who was one of his intimate acquaintance. The conversation turned upon Voltaire, and many anecdotes were related. Some person asked madame de Villette, whether the common account of Voltaire's death was true. answered, that she was with him She during his last sickness, and in the room at the time, or a few moments before he died; that he was importuned to receive a confessor, and that his only answer was, “ je Dous prie de me laisser tranquille”; fortunate than the rest, may have and that he died without any con. passed in the attainment of rationfession. That Voltaire should ality ; still every day of their life have written against the Catholick will discover some symptoms of religion, may be palliated in con- their original state. Every man sidering its excessive abuses ; but occasionally finds deviations from the vanity of displaying his wit the path of reason, in every one of led him much farther, than he his acquaintance, which cannot be probably intended. His opinion accounted for on any other posiof the necessity of a religion may tion, than the one I have assumed, be known from this famous line : that men are naturally mad. « Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.” PAINTING. Many circumstances, highly afOŞSIAN AND HOMER. fecuing in narration, are glaringly There are in Ossian many pleas. improper for the tablet of the paining passages ; but the perpetual ter. Of this class is the circumrecurrence of the same images stance of the Grecian Daughter and a continual effort to effect the affording nutriment to her aged sublime, so wearies the mind that parent. The story is barely tolI can never read but a few pages erable in the hands of the serious at a time. Ossian resembles a dramatist ; but on canvas, the tremendous rock, overhung with figure of an old man, placed in the waving woods, where you may situation of an unconscious infant, discover foaming cataracts, gloo- is perfectly disgusting. my caverns, and dismal precipices. Homer is like a fertile country, in TASTE. which you may at once contem- To assign correct rules for taste plate the variegated beauties of is not easier than to give a definiwoods and waterfalls ; torrents, tion of beauty. tion of beauty. It has puzzled which rush with impetuosity from polite scholars, metaphysicians, lofty mountains, and streams, and artists. The standard in difwhich murmur through Arcadian ferent individuals and different navales. Like the shield of Achilles, tions is widely different. The gout the poems of Homer present the of the French varies as much from wl whole world to our view. the gusto of the Italians, as from the taste of the English, and they DEFINITION OF MAN. are all equally remote from the The best, which has ever been onderscheidend vermoogen of the given, is anonymous. “ Man is a Dutch. I am led to think that the cooking animal." Disquisitions most accurate standard will be to upon man are among the most decide by taste in eating. A trea. abstruse that perplex metaphysi- tise upon the progress of the culcians. Much of the difficulty has inary art would be very interesting. arisen from establishing a wrong The advances of society towards definition. Men are naturally perfection, and its gradual decline, mad ; different individuals approx- will be found to keep pace with the imate in different degrees towards advancement and decay of the art reason. Many are completely of cooking. What a number of mad, none are perfectly rational. gradations between the roaming Whatever distance some few, more Tartar, inebriated with fermented Vol. III. No. 8. 3E mare's milk, and the refined epi- eminent characters. « The two cùrean of polished society, pouring Principal orators of the present age, libations of Burgundy and Madeira (and one of them perhaps a greater to beauty or patriotism ! Cooking than has been produced in any age) never came nearer to perfection are the Earls of Mansfield and in the Roinan empire, than' under Chatham. The former is a great the emperour Augustus ; though, man, Ciceronian ; but I should like the Roman manners, it retain think inferiour to Cicero. The ed something of the barbarity of latter is a greater man ; Demosthe republick, It gradually de- thenian, but superiour to Demoscayed with the decay of letters thenes. The first formed himself and the glory of the empire, till on the model of the great Roman the art was buried, with all others, orator ; he studied, translated, rein the obscurity of the middle ages. hearsed, and acted his orations. It rose again into notice, with the The second disdained imitation, revival of letters, under the pat- and was himself a model for eloronage of the Medici ; but attain- quence, of which no idea can be ed its greatest perfection in mod- formed, but by those, who have ern Europe, during the brilliant seen or heard him. His words period of Louis XIV. It was in have sometimes frozen my young the reign of his voluptuons suc- blood into stagnation, and somecessor, that scientifick men diges- times made it pace in such a hurry ted and published its theory and through my veins, that I could practice in many inestimable vol- scarce support it. He embellished úmes. I could enlarge much on his ideas by classical amusements, this interesting topick, if I did not and occasionally read the sermons contemplate publishing at some of Barrow, which he considered a future day (and hereby give notice mine of nervous expressions ; but, to all subject-seeking authors, in not content to correct and instruct the present exhausted state of lite imagination by the works of morerature and science) a work with tal men, he borrowed his noblest this title, An inquiry into the pro- images from the language of ingress of civil society, as connected spiration." with the culinary art ; and an at. tempt to establish, upon principles VANIERE'S PRÆDIUM RUSTICUM. drawn from this art, a true standard VANIERE was one of the moof taste. dern writers of Latin poetry, and a learned Jesuit. His Prædium Rusticum, a poem, consisting of Modern musick resembles Goth- sixteen books, on Husbandry, has ick architecture, whose parts, in- been too slightly appreciated by stead of captivating, puzzle and Doctor Warton. But Mr. Murconfound; while the harmonious ply in the preface of his translation strains of antiquity, like the Gre- of the sixteenth book, entitled The cian temples, charm by an union Bees, vindicates Vaniere with pow. of grandeur and simplicity. erful cogency. His fourteenth Book, which MANSFIELD AND CHATHAM. contains the history and manage The judgment of the younger ment of Bees, was translated by Lyttleton is conspicuous in the Mr. M. many years ago, when following brief mention of two very the famous Italian and French MUSICK. POETRY. writers of Latin poetry engaged his attention; he sometime since revised the translation for his amusement; and he seems to have published it with no other view, than that of inscribing it, in very handsome terms, to Miss Susanna Arabella Thrale. Nature has not, perhaps, produced a more astonishing phenomenon than a kingdom of Bees. It is not surprising, therefore, that the manners, the genius, and all the labours of these wonderful insects, should have engaged the attention of philosophers and poets, from Pliny to Miraldi, who first invent ́ed glass-hives; and from Virgil to Vaniere, whose Prædium Rusticum might have been immortal had the Georgics never been written. Mr. Murphy, in his Translation, has done ample justice to the Poet, whom he has so ably vindicated. From an abundance of excellence, to select is difficult. As a cribe the lines which exhibit these As when an army, at the dawn of day, For depradation while the rovers fly, She summons all her friends; her friends obey; Rush to the socket of each blooming flow'r, Till, with the liquids from that source distill'd, And viscous matter for their domes explore. Nor yet their labours cease; their time they pass Soon as the spring its genial warmth renews, specimen, however, we shall trans- And the sick rose-bud hangs its drooping head. Bid the dark eye of beauty fade, POETRY. E'en now appear the fleeting hours. Yet, if the poet's wish avails, And oft as genial June the rose, For the Anthology. TO THE H. PROCELLARIUS PELAGICUS. "Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret æquore plantas." VIRG. *The Procellarius Pelagicus, or Stormy Petrel, better known to the mariner as one of "Mother Carey's chickens," is a small bird about six inches in length, and in the extent of its wings, thirteen: It is wholly black, except the covert of the tail, and vent-feathers, which are white; the bill is hooked at the end; the nostrils tubu lar; its legs slender and long. In the Ferrol I muse, the mystery was not made a science, All the wise world is little else, in nature, Make their revenue out of legs and faces, Studious to please, and ready to submit, And view each object with another's eye; Isles this bird sometimes serves the purpose of a candle, by drawing a wick thro' its nostrils, from which it possesses the quality of spouting oil. It is seen all over the Atlantick ocean at the greatest distance from land. In tempests, of which it is said to warn the seaman by collecting under the stern of his vessel, it skims over the tops of the billows with incredible velocity. These birds are the Cypselli" of Pliny, which he places a mong the apodes of Aristotle ; not because they wanted feet, but were Kanowola. |